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From the Secret Garden Hostel....... So after two months in glorious Central America, which was so fantastic we actually really struggle to pinpoint the highlight, we're back in South America.... How did our time back here start..... With a tannoy announcement from the captain declaring we were unable to land due to the heavy rain causing the runway to be too wet...... We persisted to circle for a further 45 mins and then to say the landing was hair raising would be a pretty big understatement...... So very very late we disembarked the plane.... Think we were due to land at around
1.30pm and it was about
3pm..... It was black outside from all the rain and when we felt the air temp, we honestly thought we'd landed back in the UK.... With only a few dollars to our name, the first thing we tried to do was change our Guatemalan Quetzals so we could pay the taxi driver.... No chance..... They don't exchange them..... So we were a bit stuck.... Thankfully the taxi driver, which the hostel arranged for us, despite having to wait 90 minutes for us didn't charge us any extra.....so we could just afford it and had about 8 more dollars to
our name..... The next thing we noticed was that despite us thinking our Spanish was pretty good now with
3 months on the road.... We could understand NADA!!!! The accent in Quito is in an arena of its own......Enough shocks for one day.... Oh no...... guards outside our hostel.... Every person we met with their own Ecuador horror story to tell..... All bank cards not working so no money...... And did I mention it was FREEZING!!!!!! After all these shocks we thought.... It can't be that bad and ventured out to try and get some money.... Add this place to the sketchiest place list...... Jon took me back as I was drawing too much attention.... great.... Once we'd established it wasn't the cash machine it was our cards, we spent a further 30 minutes on the phones trying to unblock our cards..... I suppose you can't moan for them being security conscious.....And that ladies and gents was our first day in Quito, well add in some Pasta for tea and that's your lot!!!! Talk about first impressions.....After a nice lie in and a pretty good nights sleep, snuggled up in our blankets!!!...we were ready to give it Quito the benefit of the doubt and
get out and about exploring.... So after recovering our thermals from the bottom of our rucksacks, and with our hats and rain jackets we decided to check out the old town... A must do....We got as far as the end of the road and i kid you not the entire contents of the pacific ocean began to fall.... So we dived into a cafe along with loads of others to wait for it to die off.... No such luck.... 10 minutes later and the streets, which are a bit like those in yorkshire... Very hilly, were more like waterfalls... Change of plan then hey!!! Lunch, followed by a sprint across the road to the internet cafe... Exciting or what....And this carried on ALLDAY!!!!! Thankfully we'd booked in the hostel for tea, so after getting soaked we could chill out with a beer and relax.... Wrong again.... Its illegal to serve alcohol on a Sunday in Quito......We'd already booked some Spanish lessons for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and for the afternoons thankfully, which is when the rains came down.... EVERYDAY..... We have certainly become fluent in weather conditions such as... Lightening.... Thunder.... Storm.... Rain.... Wind... Clouds...and as a result have used
our time in Quito to catch up with people on Skype and it was great to see Khloe hasn't lost her touch... A grade 6 poo for Mummy, whilst we were Skyping eh Kim!!!! Also cracking through my TEFL, I'll be a qualified English teacher before you know it!!!! We did get to see the old town finally on the Wednesday, when we had a lovely sunny day and we made the most of it and that included a lovely evening meal in the most bizarre restaurant ever.... You go through a door way on a side street, get into an old fashioned elevator (or not firstly if you are us... Who Accidentally walked up the stairs to the kitchens and some flats...) this elevator then carries on going up... Maybe 8 to 10 floors and finally arrives in the sky, above everything else in Quito, thankfully it was a bit warmer maybe even 12 degrees that day, so we sat under the gas heaters and had some of the best steak we've ever tasted, served on a hot slab, which kept it cooking!!! And enjoyed the view.....All in all not our favourite place but we had a nice hostel, with great views and good company... You were never short of people to chat to, it's just a shame that they all had a bad experience to share, from losing luggage to having bags stolen off buses, to being mugged, to being violently ill....I suppose it is Karma, we are heading to the Galapagos tomorrow 😉
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kornel
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costam
ver mi laptop en Quito? me gusta mucho esto!